Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Vulcan Farts: Silent But Deadly

SPACE: The final frontier. These are the voyages of
the Starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: To explore strange new
worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where
no man has gone before.

Star Trek is an American science fiction television series
created by Gene Roddenberry, produced by Desilu Productions (later Paramount
Television). Star Trek was telecast on NBC from September 8, 1966, through
June 3, 1969. Although this television series had the title of Star
Trek, it has acquired the retronym of Star Trek: The Original Series
(Star Trek: TOS or TOS) to distinguish the show within the media franchise
that it began. Star Trek's Nielsen ratings while on NBC were low, and
the network canceled it after three seasons and 79 episodes. The show
became a cult classic in broadcast syndication during the 1970s, leading
to five additional television series, 11 theatrical films, and numerous
books, games, and other products. Star Trek follows the adventures of
the starship USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) and its crew, led by Captain
James T. Kirk (William Shatner), first officer Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy),
and chief medical officer Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley), in the 23rd
century. Shatner's voice-over introduction during each episode's opening
credits stated the starship's purpose:

In 1964, Gene Roddenberry, a longtime
fan of science fiction, drafted a proposal for a science-fiction television
series that he called Star Trek. This was to be set on board a large
interstellar spaceship in the 23rd century whose crew was dedicated
to exploring a relatively small portion of our Milky Way Galaxy. Some
of the influences on his idea that Roddenberry noted included A. E.
van Vogt's tales of the spaceship Space Beagle, Eric Frank Russell's
Marathon series of stories, and the film Forbidden Planet (1956). Other
people have also drawn parallels with the television series Rocky Jones,
Space Ranger (1954), a less sophisticated space opera that still included
many of the elements — the organization, crew relationships, missions,
part of the bridge layout, and even some technology — that were
part of Star Trek. Roddenberry also drew heavily from C.S. Forrester's
Horatio Hornblower novels that depict a daring sea captain who exercises
broad discretionary authority on distant sea missions of noble purpose.
Roddenberry often humorously referred to Captain Kirk as "Horatio
Hornblower in Space".
Roddenberry had extensive experience in writing for series about the
Old West that had been popular television fare earlier in the 1960s
and the 1950s, and he pitched his new show to the networks as "Wagon
Train to the stars." In 1964, Roddenberry signed a three-year program-development
contract with a leading independent television production company, Desilu
Productions. In Roddenberry's original concept, the protagonist was
Captain Robert April of the starship S.S. Yorktown. This character was
developed into Captain Christopher Pike, first portrayed by Jeffrey
Hunter. Roddenberry first presented Star Trek to CBS, which turned it
down in favor of the Irwin Allen creation Lost in Space. Roddenberry
next presented his concept to the head of Desilu Studio—Herb Solow—who
eventually accepted it. Solow then successfully sold Gene's vision of
Star Trek to NBC, which paid for but turned down the first pilot "The
Cage", stating that it was "too cerebral". However, the
NBC executives had still been impressed with the concept, and they understood
that its perceived faults had been partly because of the script that
they had selected themselves. The NBC executives then made the unusual
decision to pay for a second pilot, using the script called "Where
No Man Has Gone Before". Only the character of Mr. Spock, played
by Leonard Nimoy, was kept from the first pilot, and only two cast members,
Majel Barrett and Nimoy, were carried forward into the second pilot.
This pilot proved to be satisfactory to NBC, and the network selected
Star Trek to be in its upcoming television schedule for the fall of
1966.The second pilot introduced the rest of the main characters: Captain
Kirk (William Shatner), chief engineer Lt. Commander Scott (James Doohan)
and Lt. Sulu (George Takei). Paul Fix played Dr. Mark Piper in the second
pilot; ship's doctor Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley) joined the cast
when filming began for the first season, and he remained for the rest
of the series, achieving billing as the third star of the series. Also
joining the ship's permanent crew then was the communications officer,
Lt. Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), the first African-American woman to hold
such an important role in an American television series.original research?
Walter Koenig joined the cast as Ensign Pavel Chekov in the series'
second season. -Wikipidia